Charlotte's Web Thoughts

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] Today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Biden at the White House in the afternoon and addressed a joint session of Congress later in the evening at the invitation of Speaker Nancy Pelosi in one of her final acts as the nation’s to...

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] Last night, two substations in Moore County, NC were fired upon with weapons simultaneously, allegedly to cut power to a local theater hosting a drag show. I say “allegedly” because it hasn’t yet been confirmed by authorities, but it sure would take a hell...

[Hey there! This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] When they said the decriminalization of homosexuality would destroy society, they were wrong. When they said allowing LGBTQ adults to serve as public school teachers would be inappropriate because children would be vulnerable to sexual abuse, th...

[Hey there! This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] In hindsight, it was probably unwise for me to enlist in the military right before the thick of the holidays, and it will not surprise you that it certainly didn’t take me more than a few days of teenage clarity to reach that conclusion after th...

[Hey there! This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] The first time I presented publicly out-of-the-closet was at a queer spot in town, here in Washington, D.C. In fact, it was Town itself -- "Town Danceboutique" in its formal name, as it was known to out-of-town newbies. My first night out as my...

[Hey there! This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] This Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will bring the Respect for Marriage Act to the floor for a vote — the piece of legislation meant to protect marriage equality in the event that this current Supreme Court eventually decides to...

Welcome back to The Junk Drawer ! This is a regular feature of the blog in which I toss up a smorgasbord of thoughts and musings for your consideration, as well as personal news and updates from my little corner of the world. Let’s open up the drawer… The 36th Revolution I recently turned 36. You may have read my essay about it. I’m quite grateful to have made it this far in life and with my happi...

[Hey there! This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. And it’s also my birthday week. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] I turned 36 this past week. It happened in the blink of an eye, and I’ve been so busy working, so exhausted, that I missed it. Somewhere, about 35,000 feet above the earth’s skin between Chicago and San Francisco,...

[Hey there! This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] Dear Readership, Many of you have brought to our attention a pattern among our editors and reporters of obfuscating, withholding, downplaying, anesthetizing, and otherwise obstructing a clear picture of wrongdoing that would be of significant in...

[Hey there! This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription .] I’m introducing a new feature called The Junk Drawer . You know, that kitchen drawer where you stuff everything that doesn’t have an intuitive place elsewhere in your home? Old hot sauce packets? Spare change and batteries? Unfamiliar kitchen ut...

It is 5am on a Monday morning in Washington, D.C. I have no shortage of work that needs to be done. I have emails to send, meetings for which to prep and schedule, calls to make, just a lot of things to do that really cannot be put off. And yet, here I am, at an ungodly hour, watching dignitaries slowly file in for the funeral of a woman I never met and who never did anything for me. Why? How does...

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription , shoot me an email: cmclymer@gmail.com .] Today, President Biden announced student loan debt relief that will include up to $20,000 erased for Pell Grant recipients, $10,000 for everyone else making under $125k annually ($250k for married couples w...

It was the Summer of 1996, and I was 9 years-old. My mother, her third husband, my sister, and me were living in a trailer park many miles outside Fort Hood, Texas. I don’t know how far out we were, but it was far enough that there was nothing else around. It was remote. It was hot. It was bleak. The trailer park was a small one, about ten boxes total arranged in a crooked semicircle, and there we...

Dorothy Gale is an empathetic young girl who finds herself—and her little dog, too—targeted by the wealthy and harassed by law enforcement. Accused of murder, she goes on the lam and wounds up caring for men who have no heart, brains, or nerve. She is thrust into navigating dangerous circumstances beyond her control and only finds resolution when finally offered the choice to click her heels and g...

[ As always, this little blog/newsletter is how I pay my bills, and I would be so grateful if you support my writing with a paid subscription .] My working theory—and I’m being generous by calling it a mere “working theory”—is that a sizable chunk of cisgender people (that is, people who are not transgender) truly do not understand the controversy over trans-inclusion in pregnancy discussions. Sev...

[ As always, this little blog/newsletter is how I pay my bills, and I would be so grateful if you support my writing with a paid subscription .] Four months is a long time these days. At least for me, it used to be that four months was a bit of a jog but easily contextualized in the brain’s aerial view. I could look backwards and easily spot that marker. Now, it seems, the space-time continuum has...

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. For a brief period, early in my childhood, I lived in a tiny apartment with my mother, her second husband, a pair of kids each. This was the early ‘90s, and I vaguely remember being in kindergarten at the time. Our apartment complex was one of those hig...

This was originally posted as a Twitter thread on April 16, 2018. Because today is D.C. Pride, I thought it’d be lovely to make y’all smile and republish it here. As always, I would be so grateful if you support my writing with a paid subscription . Today, I was sitting in front of a cafe in downtown D.C., minding my own goddamn business, when three people who were clearly tourists of some sort wa...

[Quick note: I would love for you to support my writing with a paid subscription . This is how I pay my bills, and I’d be grateful. Thanks for considering!] “Can I ask you a personal question?”It almost always starts this way, always with the same softness of tone, eyes suddenly lowered any relative number of degrees as reflects the life experience of the person asking to inquire, sometimes nervou...

[Folks, I’m not gonna lie: I would love for you to support my writing with a paid subscription . This is how I pay my bills, and I’d be grateful. Thanks for considering.] Good morning, and welcome to Pride Month 2022!This year’s Pride comes at a precarious moment in the history of the LGBTQ rights movement. Although there have been notable advances in LGBTQ equality in the past decade—same-sex mar...

[Hi there! Quick note: my little blog here is my main source of income. This will always be free to read, but I’m thankful for your financial support. Click here to purchase a paid subscription or gift one to someone in your life.] I'm a Christian, and here's the thing that particularly frustrates and annoys me when Bible-thumping, Rapture-weirdo politicians constantly reference prayer as the go-t...

[Quick personal note: my kind and patient speaking agent wants me to remind you that Pride Month is a week away. If you’re looking for a speaker for your company, conference, college or some related Pride event, I’m available. Just click that link.] You may have been doom-scrolling yesterday and caught the latest hysteria of anti-LGBTQ extremists in the conservative movement. State Farm—the insura...

[Quick personal note: my kind and patient speaking agent wants me to remind you that Pride Month is a few weeks away. If you’re looking for a speaker for your company, conference, college or some related Pride event, I’m available. Click here to inquire .] The other day I saw a politician I admire say something on Twitter that’s long been fashionable to say. They said: “We shouldn't have college a...

It was the last day of January in 2011 when a 19 year-old engineering student at the University of Iowa delivered remarks during a public hearing for a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that was being considered by the Iowa House Judiciary Committee. Within a few months, Gallup would release their first poll showing majority support for same-sex marriage among Americans at 53...

[Pride Month is just weeks away. Looking for a speaker? I’m available. Click here for more details. ] I was 30,000 ft. somewhere over Mississippi or Alabama when the news broke, and I wouldn’t know about it for a few hours. I had left my phone charging in my lap, and just as we neared the runway in our descent, it began buzzing uncontrollably: push notifications from NYT and Politico, hundreds of...